Thursday, January 04, 2007

This One Is Just To Piss Off Darren

The FBI’s report once again confirmed that violent crime rates are lower in states with Right-to-Carry (RTC) laws. In 2005, RTC states had, on average, 22% lower total violent crime, 30% less murder, 46% lower robbery, and 12% lower aggravated assault rates, compared to the rest of the country.

The data is per 100,000 people. It's not significant if it's city or town. Unless you're arguing that people living in cities are inherently more dangerous then any other person. Washington DC has the tightest gun policy in the country and also the highest murder rate.

If it's per 100,000 that's fine, but if it were by state it would not mean much because Wyoming has the same number of people as D.C. If you compare the crime rates it looks like the difference is the laws when it's really that the same number of people in a much, much smaller space kill each other more. Crime rates in cities are always higher than the country if you don't take into account the number of people.

And no, people in the cities are not inherantly more dangerous than people in the country. IF there was a CITY V. COUNTRY SHOWDOWN EXTRAVAGANZA it would be over real quick. City boy would pull out his switchblade (or, if you want to give him a chance, his .45) and country boy would blow him to bits with a shotgun.

This Comment was sponsored by the letter STEREOTYPE and the number 187.